Charlie the yeti

Igloofest 2017 Nordik Village

Participatory Installation for Igloofest 2017 Nordik Village

Igloofest an electronic music festival, celebrates winter in its own way. He stormed the Old Port of Montreal and invited Montrealers to dance outside under the snow. As part of Montreal's 375th anniversary festivities, Igloofest created a Nordik Village and invited 7 design and architectural firms to imagine a shelter that speaks about nordicity. This idea was inspired by the Winter Station design competition in Toronto.

The challenge was to design a nice micro-architecture in the public space that could withstand the Quebec winter and respect a limited budget. The village Nordik is open to all, it is particularly visited by the festival-goers of Igloofest, often very enthusiastic ;)

In order to remain in the festive spirit of Igloofest, we have chosen to embody this micro-architecture in an imaginary character, the Yeti. We have designed a hairy structure, whose hairs react to the wind and to winter conditions.

We added a face to our northern shelter in order to create Charlie the Yeti! Every element of his face can move. Passers-by are invited to manipulate Charlie's face, to give him a large number of expressions and moods.

Charlie was photographed a lot during the festival, visitors of the Old Port took ownership of its personality! The inside of the shelter was covered with hair. A multicoloured rotating light invited people to dance.